READY TO ROLL – Cape Cod Tech valedictorian Joe Angulo is ready for summer employment as a carpenter with the truck and tools left to him by his late father before attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Cape Tech’s Joe Angulo will now take father’s dream off to college

The last time I saw Mr. Jose A. Angulo was on a bright fall day in which the trees were saying goodbye to the leaves fluttering whimsically to the ground. In his mid- 50s, he was pacing, first this way, then that, in the front yard of his modest, ranch-type home on a well-traveled Hyannis street. I pulled up and lowered the car window.

He was wearing his usual off-white work overalls and a dark blue hooded sweatshirt that partially covered his square, friendly face, a visage, on that day, distorted by hollows of anguish circling hopeless eyes and a head shorn of hair by the random blade of chemotherapy.

“I’m not going to make it, Mr. Paul,” he confessed in the thick Spanish accent he couldn’t shake and for which he experienced countless indignities over the years at the hands of the smug and the indifferent.

But he was worried now, not for himself, but “for them” as he gestured with his head toward the cottage that was home to his wife and two children, the place sustained many years by the storied labor of the immigrant worker.

With leaves dying around him, it was clear he had already reconciled himself, however reluctantly, to his fate, but he was having a difficult time, he said, trying to get certain Social Security assistance that would help the situation.

In hindsight, Mr. Angulo, a native of Venezuela whose mantra was the hum of “labor,” did not seem aware he had already provided the family with an exemplary model of the work ethic, with love and guidance that translated into the family’s ability to sustain itself through difficult times.

And so it was, just three weeks ago, a year and half after Mr. Angulo’s premature death from cancer, that his son, Joe, 18, took to the rostrum as valedictorian of his graduating class at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School.

Imagine. First in his class. It would have done Mr. Jose A. Angulo proud, as proud as the day that he became a naturalized citizen, to experience the confirmation of his hopes. And it would have eased his burden of responsibility as a steadfast provider knowing that Joe had received a $27,000 annual scholarship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an additional $56,000 in earned scholarships from various Cape and other organizations.

“I don’t know if he expected all this to happen,” Joe said, “but he always told me to keep trying.

“I was 13 the first time he was sick,” Joe recalled last week. “He told me it didn’t look too good for him. Then he basically told me to be the man and assume the responsibility. It was tough,” said Joe, a subtle quiver in his expression betraying the emotion underlying the conversation, “when your dad tells you that. He was like a superman to me.”

How does a 13-year-old react to that kind of devastating news? “I grew (matured) a little bit from it. It changed my perspective to things, such as life is short, not guaranteed,” Joe said.

“My father talked to me all the time, giving as example his own life without an education. He told me about shining shoes for a nickel and what he had to go through to earn a living.”

There had been indignities in this country that Mr. Angulo confessed to this writer on occasion, and it hurt him, he would say, to think that some people thought less of him because he had an accent or to be viewed as something other than the upstanding citizen he was because of it.

The reality was that Mr. Angulo was a blessing to families needing home repairs at modest cost. He could do it all…carpenter, electrician, plumber, painter, tiler, laborer, fence and deck builder, window and slider installer, roofer - always on the job to support the family while remodeling his own small domicile a few hours at a time.

“His hobby was his work,” Joe said. “He would take construction and remodeling jobs and go to work early in the morning, come home at about 2 ‘o’clock, take a quick rest and then work from 3 to 11 at the hospital (Cape Cod Hospital) where he started out on the cleaning crew, a janitor and maintenance person.” Mr. Angulo worked his way up over the years to the medical records department. “I heard him complain a few times about the chemicals at work, but I really don’t know much about that. He even worked his construction jobs on weekends.”

Mr. Angulo had difficulty accepting the fact that he had cancer. He never smoked and his family had no history of the disease.

“When I was old enough,“ Joe said, “he started taking me on jobs. I’d work with him. That was our father-and-son time together,” and where Joe received a trades indoctrination. “Sometimes we would stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and he would buy me a muffin. If there was a homeless man around, he would buy him something too.”

The notion of giving was passed down from father. While in high school, Joe helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity, taught carpentry to third graders at a Yarmouth school by cutting out birdhouse parts and having children put them together, and volunteered teaching Kung Fu classes to children.

For Joe, part of his father’s legacy includes an aging panel truck and a treasure of tools that he now uses on the job.

Mr. Angulo – he had many friends among hospital employees and former clients – enjoyed his spirited political debate but, Joe says, he also was a fan of boxing matches on television. “But if I was home watching TV, he would tell me to shut it off and go read a book instead.”

It was good advice, Joe admits. “I always wanted to do well in school and that helped. I enjoyed learning. Most kids think it’s a drag, but it isn’t that bad.”

Joe says his father wanted him to be able to handle himself physically as well as mentally, and enrolled him in a martial arts class. Joe stayed with that quite a while, more recently opting to “bulk up” by power-lifting weights. “I’ll get back to martial arts in college. They have clubs,” he said.

Now at 250 solid pounds, that and a connection to a former martial arts instructor has landed Joe a summer job as a doorman in a Hyannis restaurant/club in addition to daytime work as a carpenter for Cape Associates.

“I’m going to Cape Cod Community College for a math class too,” he said, to better prepare himself for a college major in civil engineering and minor in construction management. His goal is to become a structural engineer.

Joe’s mother, Cemir, a clinical coordinator for the Visiting Nurse Association, said she and Mr. Angulo were married in Venezuela before he left for the States “to work for the American Dream.” He returned for her only after he was able to buy a house for her to live in. Their daughter, Elba, is a senior at Barnstable High School where she is on the gymnastics team, teaches gymnastics to younger children and also plans to attend college to become a physical or occupational therapist.

Asked whether he would return to the Cape after college, Joe said he would go where the work is, but wouldn’t mind if it was on the Cape. He said that while he has a busy summer schedule, he also hopes to “enjoy the summer as much as I can,” given his father-like work schedule.

The son is the evidence that Mr. Jose A. Angulo neither lived nor died in vain.